Because the Breslin Center doesn’t pay very well, they decided to give us special incentive gifts if we ushered a lot of events. For example, if you work 20 events you get a very, very special glass. That may not seem like much, but you have to understand how very special this glass is. “Hey, my paycheck didn’t provide enough money for me to purchase even a single text book, but look! A glass!” Personally, I had received an email a couple of weeks ago which notified me that I had qualified for the level 2 incentive gift, which meant that I was eligible for my choice of either a mountaineer knife, a CD case or a travel mug. You can imagine my excitement! I practically raced down to the Breslin Center to claim my prize. As I was walking down there, I had decided on the knife, so that I could then threaten the person working there with it and make him give me the CD case and the travel mug also. As far as I could tell, it was a perfect plan. There was only one problem: The guy said that I was one point short of qualifying for level 2. I said, “But–but the email! The–the knife!” The guy just shook his head.

I’m alright, now. After failing to attain the magical mountaineer knife, I was emotionally damaged for several days, but now I’m fully healed, and I have even begun to look for a summer job. The question is, where should I get that job? I’ve already eliminated all jobs that relate to sales, food services or doing any kind of real work, but that doesn’t really leave much left. In fact, it doesn’t leave anything left. That’s why I might just have to go get a job at a random place. But where?

A little known fact about me is that I have recently sold out. The pressures of remaining a unique individual had become too great, and so I decided to just go ahead and sell myself out to The Man. That’s why now I sometimes where a shirt that says “GAP” on it, and that’s why I listen to Top 40 music nonstop. That’s also why I might get a job at the Briarwood mall, because where else could I work that would express my newfound conformity? However, I’m not fully committed to work there yet, mostly because I always get lost within five minutes of entering the mall, and I’d never be able to locate the store that I worked at. So I may also get a job at a video store, or maybe a movie theater–somewhere dumb like that. If anybody out there can think of a better idea, feel free to notify me. I strongly dislike looking for jobs.

Next week is Finals Week—or Sweeps Week, as I like to call it—and for a lot of people that means three things: studying, studying and studying! Personally, however, I’ve never been hip to this whole studying tactic. Instead, I always opt to come to class on the day of the final completely unprepared and then—and only then—do I break out my patented secret: a panel of four of the most renowned guessers who live inside my head. I read a multiple-choice question and then the four of them interpret the tricky double meanings each answer possesses, analyze the merit of each choice based solely on wording and then, finally, compute the statistical probability of whether an ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ ‘D’ or the tricky ‘E’ is most likely to be the correct response based on previous guesses (“Sir, we’ve just answered ‘B’ twice in a row—there’s no way they’re hitting us up for a third ‘B’). For the first few questions, this method usually works fine. However, by around the 6th or 7th question, a split decision almost always arises—it’s either two vs. two or, in some rare cases, 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 1. These split decisions are usually followed by a ten-minute battle of internal fisticuffs, after which many panelists are too injured to continue guessing. I then must recruit some Spanish-speaking expert guessers, which always leads me down the path to confusion, as I don’t speak Spanish, and neither do any of the other panelists. They’ll say, “Did you say the answer is ‘C’ or ‘Si’? And quit using complex verbs, Carlos. We can’t understand you.” Having Spanish-speaking panelists is probably the reason approximately one third of my write-in answers are written in Spanish. More importantly, it’s probably the reason I usually do poorly on tests. I mean, how can I consult a guessing expert who lives inside my head if he can’t speak my language? Give me a break. So, basically, I’m either going to have to start studying like everybody else or simply learn Spanish.

I won’t be sure if this post makes any sense or not until tomorrow, because I haven’t gotten any sleep in the last 30 cubic hours. (Scholar’s Note: One cubic hour equals time * the Residence Interval (RI) of floods in Arizona * the % hypertextuality—which is almost always 100.) Fortunately, in only 218.7 cubic hours, I will be done with Sweeps Week. That’s a relief, because Sweeps Week is awful waffle.

Somebody pulled the fire alarm Thursday night at about four in the morning, and so everyone had to go outside and wait for the imaginary fire to be put out. Nobody’s sure who pulled the alarm, but I highly suspect it was Jerry Seinfeld, because who else could be capable of just fantastic wit? Pulling the fire alarm when there is no actual fire is an absolutely brilliant social commentary. I mean, think about it: Whether they wanted to sleep or not, everybody had to go outside at 4am and wait around. That’s comedy, man. Unless … wait a minute, pulling the fire alarm when there is no fire isn’t funny at all. In fact, it’s kind of the trademark of an asshole. The irony is that, if it turns out the Christians are right about the afterlife, the person who pulled the fire alarm is going to burn in hell.

Speaking of religion, the film Hollow Man is really stupid. I say “speaking of religion” because the characters kept making references to “playing God.” He turned invisible. How the hell is that playing God? If you’re cloning things, people could make an argument that you’re playing God. If you’re tinkering with genetics in future children, alright, fine, people could remark that you’re playing God there, too. But if you simply become invisible to the naked eye, that’s not playing freakin’ God—that’s just turning invisible. Nobody thinks that any God created existence by turning invisible. You just can’t make existences that way.

Looking for a fun way to increase your risk of dying every day by about 2,000%? I recommended Rollerblading. Personally, even though I’ve had my Rollerblades for years, I’ve managed to almost die every single time I’ve ever used them. The problem lies in their design: they’re shoes with wheels on them. This makes it impossible to stay balanced or stop on command. You are not allowed to dictate where you go with these things—you merely make suggestions. Sometimes my Rollerblades don’t feel like stopping at my classes, so I just kind of ride it out and see where they’re taking me. Usually it’s to a busy intersection, or to Canada, or to a busy intersection in Canada. This often leads to memorable adventures, but it rarely leads to me getting to class on time.

Oh, sure, you might see people on in-line skates who look like they’re in control, but it’s all a facade. These people are merely pretending to be elegant, when in reality they are fearing for their lives. I know. I’ve been there.

On another topic, there has been an incredible amount of ants running around my dorm room lately. Since there’s not really anything to eat, all they are able to consume are their dead friends. After they do that, they usually run around some more and look for a place to die, whereupon other ants eats them. Somehow, they’ve managed to survive all of this, and in fact they seem to be multiplying. I don’t know where they’re coming from, but they’re getting really annoying. This morning, for example, I woke up early because one of the ants had bit my goddamn leg. He bit my leg! Excuse me for trying to sleep in my own freaking bed. What, did he think he would kill me? There’s no way a little ant could have killed something that’s about eight hundred thousands times bigger than he was. Man, ants are so stupid. It’s a miracle they’ve survived as a species as long as they have. What’s they’re secret? They never know where they’re going, they only eat the dead bodies of their family, and they’re constantly trying to kill animals that are way bigger than they are. And think about it: If you were the queen of an ant colony, you would send out your smartest ants to scavenge for food. This means that the ants we see are the most clever ants alive, and that somewhere down in that little anthill are ants who don’t even know how to run around in a circle looking for dead insects to eat. And how long have ants been around? Forever. Maybe this whole “science” thing humans are working on isn’t the answer. Maybe we should mindlessly run around and try to bite wild bears on their legs. It certainly couldn’t hurt.